Here are my assumptions and I hope anet can clear this up.
Ranger magic was never bound in the bloodstones. Just as the spirits of the underworld are inaccessible to the dragons, so is the spirit world, as evidenced by the lore surrounding havrouns. Spirit magic can therefore perform many things we would have no way of replicating with the other professions. The manipulation of plants has too many aspects to them, water, earth, life force, the ranger must be channeling the magic of the spirits themselves.
Again on the subject of havrouns, the blessing of a spirit can clearly be received without it becoming fully corporeal. It is well known that spirits can be eaten by the dragons, yet we have seem to have a corporeal spirit of the sun. Therefore even the spirits that appear corporeal are actually just projecting bits of their essence, for it is unlikely spirits that are not being bound would allow themselves to be at the risk of being murdered like the spirit of owl.
If rangers can utilize the magic of spirits when they are semi corporeal, it is likely they can with further training perform acts of spirit magic without needing to summon forth the spirit. The racial skills of the norn, and the sylvari, both seem to implicate that creatures with connections to certain aspects of nature can commune with either the physical or spiritual aspects of animals or plants.
So now we assume that the fact that skills like muddy terrain no longer require a ritual is because the ranger is more in tune with nature, as a sylvari requires no ritual to perform a skill similar to entangle.
And now that we have assumed there is a progression in the rangers level of spirit ability we can assume that with further training they may be able to further invoke the power of spirits without summoning them.
As such an avatar would be a helpful step forward where a ranger could better invoke their powers, without the inherent danger of forcing them to become fully corporeal. And as the avatars of the gods were in gw1, these celestial avatars may allow a ranger to fully utilize a being’s powers, without invoking separately for tasks, and allowing it to gain a further grasp on reality than it may sense from the mists.
So we are left with a timeline.
The final implication is that druids were rangers so in touch with nature that they could become avatars of different spirits, similar to the way dervishes became avatars of .
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This was the only thing I could think of. And as I have said before druid lore has some issues.
For one, the spirit of owl is dead, yet there have been no changes to owls from what we can tell, a norn can still call owl. If spirits are independent of what they represent, and a ranger can already invoke the powers of celestial bodies, for example the sun spirit, then why would they even need to become an avatar of anything.
Also what makes me unsure is that a ranger celestial avatar seed of life is almost on the same level as the sylvari racial healing seed. So the Sylvari are already more in tune with druid spirits. They can perform skills like entangle without needing to be a ranger, and now the ranger elite spec has a skill roughly analogous to what sylvari learn easily?
There don’t seem to be major sylvari rangers in the storyline, so it will be fun to explain why the first Druid will probably not be Sylvari.
There are also strange implications with a celestial avatar performing plant manipulation.
They make it seem as if tidal, and other lunar things, are astral forces. Is the moon in Tyria a star? Are they channeling moon powers to gather tidal waves, and these tidal waves can be instantly gathered, despite the fact that summoning water is not what the moon does, or any mythology I know of, and there would be no reason why the moon can summon water. And if they can summon the tidal force, and the healing seed, why do they need to call down cosmic force and lunar missiles.
Anyway, this was in response to some of the things discussed in the other post. I could be complete wrong in my assumptions, in which case Druid makes even less sense. Just gonna have to wait and see.
Druid lore is fine as is. We just need to wait until HoT launches as I’m sure there will be quests where we meet the druids again and see more of what they can do.
You are too obsessed with viewing everything as separate. Celestial Avatars can manipulate plant magic because the celestial branch and the plant branch are all the same power: Nature Magic. Just like the ranger can access both the power of fire from the Sun Spirit and ice from the Frost Spirit. Two complete opposite forces still fall under the same category that is nature magic. Similarly the separation of heaven and earth, stars and plants, is just a separation your own mind is placing on this form of magic.
The Tyrian moon isn’t a star but it exists as a heavenly body among the stars. It’s a celestial entity. So is the sun. The moon has a direct effect on the tides. This is common knowledge. As for summoning water… Rangers could do that already. Healing Spring is exactly that. Again it’s ALL nature magic.
The modern druid accepts a larger vision of what constitutes nature. Just as the ancient Maguuma Druids understood it. They released their physical shells and became astral beings. Spirits that were not bound to the earth as the plants and animals they cared for were.
Druid lore is fine as is. We just need to wait until HoT launches as I’m sure there will be quests where we meet the druids again and see more of what they can do.
You are too obsessed with viewing everything as separate. Celestial Avatars can manipulate plant magic because the celestial branch and the plant branch are all the same power: Nature Magic. Just like the ranger can access both the power of fire from the Sun Spirit and ice from the Frost Spirit. Two complete opposite forces still fall under the same category that is nature magic. Similarly the separation of heaven and earth, stars and plants, is just a separation your own mind is placing on this form of magic.
The Tyrian moon isn’t a star but it exists as a heavenly body among the stars. It’s a celestial entity. So is the sun. The moon has a direct effect on the tides. This is common knowledge. As for summoning water… Rangers could do that already. Healing Spring is exactly that. Again it’s ALL nature magic.
The modern druid accepts a larger vision of what constitutes nature. Just as the ancient Maguuma Druids understood it. They released their physical shells and became astral beings. Spirits that were not bound to the earth as the plants and animals they cared for were.
That is way too much of a simplification.
Earth elementals cannot perform water magic. The sun spirit does not perform frost magic. And they have shown no reason why the celestial spirits performs plant magic.
You aren’t literally becoming a star spirit. You’re channeling the power of the heavens to amplify your connection to nature. Which would include plants.
The sun spirit doesn’t freeze things, but the ranger can. The ranger can throw an axe imbued with chilling magic before setting the ground on fire with a magically enhanced torch. The ranger can also summon the sun and frost spirits together and benefit from both of their powers simultaneously. The individual spirits represent a single part of the whole that is nature. Celestial Avatar form is the whole.
Why did you make another thread when this is dealing with the same exact subject as your previous one? There was no need to make another one on the topic, especially since your last one in still on top of the front page.
I do wonder whether the spirits of nature the ranger summons come from the same realm as per example; Owl spirit or more related (tho sadly missing in gw2, shame on you anet) ritualist spirits. Do these all come from the mists or are nature spirits present within tyria itself? anyhow, wondering aside :p , Erukk does have a point, the other thread is kind of the exact same topic, the druid lore and whether it fits within the lore of gw2.
Why did you make another thread when this is dealing with the same exact subject as your previous one? There was no need to make another one on the topic, especially since your last one in still on top of the front page.
Simply because I wanted clarification from Anet on this specific theory. I did not want this post to be lost among the posts in the other thread. Also this is more focused on spirits. Where as the other thread ranges from weh no suh to whether we are doing elemental magic. This was an attempt to steer the conversation towards a specific topic within Druid lore.
(edited by Daniel Handler.4816)
Why did you make another thread when this is dealing with the same exact subject as your previous one? There was no need to make another one on the topic, especially since your last one in still on top of the front page.
Simply because I wanted clarification from Anet on this specific theory. I did not want this post to be lost among the posts in the other thread. Also this is more focused on spirits. Where as the other thread ranges from weh no suh to whether we are doing elemental magic. This was an attempt to steer the conversation towards a specific topic within Druid lore.
They did state (if my memory isn’t betraying me :p) that there would some lore explanation given, i remember reading one regarding the scrapper (which was also a known term within the gw2 universe and how it related to the new spec)
and ye the other topic does kinda go over every possible theory :p so i guess one specificly related to the nature of the druid and their spiritual connection could warrant its own thread
You aren’t literally becoming a star spirit. You’re channeling the power of the heavens to amplify your connection to nature. Which would include plants.
The sun spirit doesn’t freeze things, but the ranger can. The ranger can throw an axe imbued with chilling magic before setting the ground on fire with a magically enhanced torch. The ranger can also summon the sun and frost spirits together and benefit from both of their powers simultaneously. The individual spirits represent a single part of the whole that is nature. Celestial Avatar form is the whole.
You are an avatar of a celestial or celestial forces. And avatars in gw1 and gw2 have always been physical embodiments of a greater power.
But going with your idea they become this avatar to enhance their powers. Why would such an action flip over glyphs?
Lastly your concept of the cosmos is countered by the celestial blessings giving you celestial skills. Channeling the power of those celestial did not give you nature magic.
I do wonder whether the spirits of nature the ranger summons come from the same realm as per example; Owl spirit or more related (tho sadly missing in gw2, shame on you anet) ritualist spirits. Do these all come from the mists or are nature spirits present within tyria itself?
My interpretation:
The spirits a ranger summons are more or less the.. souls of plants. Every living thing has a soul, even a little blade of gras. While the spirit of a little grasblade is nothing more than a lifespark with a faint wish to grow, the soul/spirit of a very old, massive tree becomes something more complex in nature, obtaining an own will, able to communicate with empathic connections to those who open their mind to them like rangers, maybe other trees, Mordremoth. While very strong spirits like the spirit of the Pale Tree are powerful enough to incarnate an avatar on their own, others like regular treespirits and former druids need a ritual to manifest.
The frostspirit of the ranger has nothing to do with a frostelemental (ice perfused with magic to the point it get animated by it), it is the spirit of a tree which attuned to ice, e.g. due to its location in the shiverpeak mountains, so it had to learn to deal with the cold over the course of decades and is now able to manipulate it to some degree like an elementalist.
(edited by Amraston.2846)
You aren’t literally becoming a star spirit. You’re channeling the power of the heavens to amplify your connection to nature. Which would include plants.
The sun spirit doesn’t freeze things, but the ranger can. The ranger can throw an axe imbued with chilling magic before setting the ground on fire with a magically enhanced torch. The ranger can also summon the sun and frost spirits together and benefit from both of their powers simultaneously. The individual spirits represent a single part of the whole that is nature. Celestial Avatar form is the whole.
You should check what an avatar meant in gw1 and question why it seems to change in gw2 for only one skill, but remain constant for all the other avatar skills in the game.
And channeling heavenly powers to make yourself closer to nature conflicts with the celestial skills of gw1. Your concept of the cosmos requires some sort of in game lore to back it up. And you should define what you mean by heavens. You are treating it like eternal alchemy. There needs to be some justification why you must channel the power of a celestial spirit to become closer to a plant spirit.
I can accept that Rangers probably had their ability to use magic strengthened in the same way as ritualists. And that most likely as more magic returns to the world Rangers can further channel spiritual powers without ritual.
I can accept that becoming an avatar is probably the highest form if spirit magic as it allows direct use of spirit powers, rather than indirect invocation.
What is weird is why druids would choose celestial as their source of power. In the dense jungles of magguma they would not even see the stars
(edited by Daniel Handler.4816)
You should check what an avatar meant in gw1 and question why it seems to change in gw2 for only one skill, but remain constant for all the other avatar skills in the game.
And channeling heavenly powers to make yourself closer to nature conflicts with the celestial skills of gw1. Your concept of the cosmos requires some sort of in game lore to back it up. And you should define what you mean by heavens. You are treating it like eternal alchemy. There needs to be some justification why you must channel the power of a celestial spirit to become closer to a plant spirit.
I can accept that Rangers probably had their ability to use magic strengthened in the same way as ritualists. And that most likely as more magic returns to the world Rangers can further channel spiritual powers without ritual.
I can accept that becoming an avatar is probably the highest form if spirit magic as it allows direct use of spirit powers, rather than indirect invocation.
What is weird is why druids would choose celestial as their source of power. In the dense jungles of magguma they would not even see the stars
Um, why did you respond to me twice with two different posts? Forum mess up or something?
Anyway. I don’t see what separates the Celestial Avatar from normal Avatars beyond the idea that the Celestial Avatar is channeling energy from the universe and not a specific entity.
Interesting you bring up celestial skills.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Celestial_Storm
This one deals fire, ice, earth, and lightning damage simultaneously. Elemental attacks from a celestial source.
In fact all the celestial skills seem to be powerful extensions of what the profession normally does. Rangers got an empowered stance as in GW1 time they were more martial than magical, Ritualists summoned the spirits of the men who killed Shiro originally, and… The necromancer skill summons a celestial horror that looks like a flesh golem.
Going by what we see from these skills channeling celestial powers enhances your own skills. So a ranger, who can already summon plant life via Entangle and Vine Surge, being able to summon the Seed of Life fits perfectly. Entering the Celestial Avatar form enhances their ability to use nature magic to a new level.
According to Ogden Stonehealer Eternal Alchemy is just another expression of The All, and according to GW2 season 2 The All seems to be an accurate interpretation of the universe.
Again, you aren’t necessarily channeling a celestial SPIRIT. Just the celestial forces of the universe. You’re treating your spirit theory as a fact and judging my theory from that position when in reality there is no lore that outright supports either side. I’m sure a lot of this will be explained when we enter Maguuma and speak to the druids again come HoT.
As for your statement about druids not being able to see the stars.
“The spirit beholds the truths that the eye cannot see.”
~ Ancient Druid Spirit
You should check what an avatar meant in gw1 and question why it seems to change in gw2 for only one skill, but remain constant for all the other avatar skills in the game.
And channeling heavenly powers to make yourself closer to nature conflicts with the celestial skills of gw1. Your concept of the cosmos requires some sort of in game lore to back it up. And you should define what you mean by heavens. You are treating it like eternal alchemy. There needs to be some justification why you must channel the power of a celestial spirit to become closer to a plant spirit.
I can accept that Rangers probably had their ability to use magic strengthened in the same way as ritualists. And that most likely as more magic returns to the world Rangers can further channel spiritual powers without ritual.
I can accept that becoming an avatar is probably the highest form if spirit magic as it allows direct use of spirit powers, rather than indirect invocation.
What is weird is why druids would choose celestial as their source of power. In the dense jungles of magguma they would not even see the stars
Um, why did you respond to me twice with two different posts? Forum mess up or something?
Anyway. I don’t see what separates the Celestial Avatar from normal Avatars beyond the idea that the Celestial Avatar is channeling energy from the universe and not a specific entity.
Interesting you bring up celestial skills.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Celestial_Storm
This one deals fire, ice, earth, and lightning damage simultaneously. Elemental attacks from a celestial source.In fact all the celestial skills seem to be powerful extensions of what the profession normally does. Rangers got an empowered stance as in GW1 time they were more martial than magical, Ritualists summoned the spirits of the men who killed Shiro originally, and… The necromancer skill summons a celestial horror that looks like a flesh golem.
Going by what we see from these skills channeling celestial powers enhances your own skills. So a ranger, who can already summon plant life via Entangle and Vine Surge, being able to summon the Seed of Life fits perfectly. Entering the Celestial Avatar form enhances their ability to use nature magic to a new level.
According to Ogden Stonehealer Eternal Alchemy is just another expression of The All, and according to GW2 season 2 The All seems to be an accurate interpretation of the universe.
Again, you aren’t necessarily channeling a celestial SPIRIT. Just the celestial forces of the universe. You’re treating your spirit theory as a fact and judging my theory from that position when in reality there is no lore that outright supports either side. I’m sure a lot of this will be explained when we enter Maguuma and speak to the druids again come HoT.
As for your statement about druids not being able to see the stars.
“The spirit beholds the truths that the eye cannot see.”
~ Ancient Druid Spirit
Probably a bug.
The reason why you would need to be channelling a being is how the word avatar is used in gw1. There is a reason why death shroud is not death avatar. And now with the specs death shroud becomes similar enough that they are now called reapers. But still they are not referred to as avatars, for reaper avatars exist and you are not of them. So it is called reaper shroud.
So why is it then called a Celestial avatar and not a celestial shroud? The universe is not a being or so we thought.
Probably a bug.
The reason why you would need to be channelling a being is how the word avatar is used in gw1. There is a reason why death shroud is not death avatar. And now with the specs death shroud becomes similar enough that they are now called reapers. But still they are not referred to as avatars, for reaper avatars exist and you are not of them. So it is called reaper shroud.
So why is it then called a Celestial avatar and not a celestial shroud? The universe is not a being or so we thought.
So your argument is one of pure semantics?
There is an extremely small amount of information on what the avatars are in relation to their god. We only really know that Grenth’s avatars are his Reapers, who were mortal men he elevated. As far as I can tell there isn’t any lore that says the Reapers channel Grenth the same way dervishes do, and dervishes who use the Avatar of Grenth skill certainly don’t become Reapers.
Meanwhile skills that function identically to dervish avatars, like the spirit blessings you get from the norn and the norn transformations themselves, are not called avatars. Even though they are functionally the same power.
Then there’s the Avatar of the Pale Tree who is just a manifestation of her spirit in a physical form and not a person channeling her, which is completely unlike the avatars we’re familiar with.
Though even if you’re right and you’re channeling the avatar of some celestial spirit that still doesn’t mean you are cutting yourself off from other forms of nature magic. As the celestial skills show they are not incompatible with other forms of magic and indeed serve to provide enhanced abilities the core profession had access to.
Probably a bug.
The reason why you would need to be channelling a being is how the word avatar is used in gw1. There is a reason why death shroud is not death avatar. And now with the specs death shroud becomes similar enough that they are now called reapers. But still they are not referred to as avatars, for reaper avatars exist and you are not of them. So it is called reaper shroud.
So why is it then called a Celestial avatar and not a celestial shroud? The universe is not a being or so we thought.
So your argument is one of pure semantics?
There is an extremely small amount of information on what the avatars are in relation to their god. We only really know that Grenth’s avatars are his Reapers, who were mortal men he elevated. As far as I can tell there isn’t any lore that says the Reapers channel Grenth the same way dervishes do, and dervishes who use the Avatar of Grenth skill certainly don’t become Reapers.
Meanwhile skills that function identically to dervish avatars, like the spirit blessings you get from the norn and the norn transformations themselves, are not called avatars. Even though they are functionally the same power.
Then there’s the Avatar of the Pale Tree who is just a manifestation of her spirit in a physical form and not a person channeling her, which is completely unlike the avatars we’re familiar with.
Though even if you’re right and you’re channeling the avatar of some celestial spirit that still doesn’t mean you are cutting yourself off from other forms of nature magic. As the celestial skills show they are not incompatible with other forms of magic and indeed serve to provide enhanced abilities the core profession had access to.
Its not semantics if it is part of lore. Avatars have always been the physical embodiment of a higher being. The celestials themselves were avatars of specific stars. When you say celestial Avatar you are saying that you are becoming the physical embodiment of a star sprit. This is backed up by the fact that the form resembles the celestials from gw1. And the reveal refers to you as becoming closer to stars. As well as the fact that no avatars of general forces exists in the game.
Obviously we will have to wait till Gw2 but when they make the claim they are avatars of something they should explain what that something is. Right now I am just trying to guess why krytan humans had a canthan connection. But again it can wait. I just wanted to share my confusion because I thought that I wasn’t the only one confused (I wasn’t) and perhaps the lore masters at Anet would notice these discussions and adjust their in game lore from HoT so it answered some of these questions.
Its not semantics if it is part of lore. Avatars have always been the physical embodiment of a higher being. The celestials themselves were avatars of specific stars. When you say celestial Avatar you are saying that you are becoming the physical embodiment of a star sprit. This is backed up by the fact that the form resembles the celestials from gw1. And the reveal refers to you as becoming closer to stars. As well as the fact that no avatars of general forces exists in the game.
Obviously we will have to wait till Gw2 but when they make the claim they are avatars of something they should explain what that something is. Right now I am just trying to guess why krytan humans had a canthan connection. But again it can wait. I just wanted to share my confusion because I thought that I wasn’t the only one confused (I wasn’t) and perhaps the lore masters at Anet would notice these discussions and adjust their in game lore from HoT so it answered some of these questions.
Not all avatars are exactly the same though, which does open up the possibility of someone becoming the avatar of a general force rather than a specific deity. Just because we’ve not seen one yet doesn’t mean it’s completely impossible.
The celestial avatar form also isn’t THAT similar to Celestials. Celestials look like constellations of animals while the celestial avatar looks more like an area of space with darkness making up most of it’s body and stars dotting the “background”. Which is what makes me think they are channeling celestial energy in general rather than a specific entity, as another thing most avatar skills have in common is they give you the features of whatever you’re channeling. Avatar of the Pale Tree being the exception.
It’s also worth mentioning that stars aren’t Canthan specific. There’s no reason to think celestial spirits or celestial power is limited to only one continent when the stars are in the sky all across Tyria. More than likely this is a case of convergent evolution. Where two unrelated groups develop similar attributes despite never coming into contact with one another.
After all, there IS evidence there were druids in Cantha as well as Tyria. The Wardens were hypothesized to have originally been either druids or monks, which implies Cantha had their own druids. Two groups of nature worshipers who have no prior connection that we know of that are both called druids. Is it so hard to believe more than one group of star spirits exist? Or that celestial magic is accessible to more people than just Canthans?
Actually almost none of the avatars in game beyond the dervish take the form of the entity they draw strength from. The avatars of grenth bear no resemblance to the repears yet no one would say the reapers are not avatars.
If this is a case of convergent evolution then that needs to be explained by any lore they give in HoT.
(edited by Daniel Handler.4816)
True, but I assume there’s an inherent difference in an avatar as a full time job like the Reapers or the other god’s avatars and the power to channel a beings power like the dervish avatars or, if there is a star spirit being drawn on, the celestial avatar.
It does, and I’m sure it will. We’re bound to meet the druids when we get deeper into the jungle. Their home is under attack after all, and we know from quests in the sylvari zones that the druid spirits aren’t all gone.
So far the lore of the elite specs seem to be that the professions gained new skills to adapt to the jungle. It’d make sense if we see the druid spirits passing on their knowledge to rangers to train new druids.
True, but I assume there’s an inherent difference in an avatar as a full time job like the Reapers or the other god’s avatars and the power to channel a beings power like the dervish avatars or, if there is a star spirit being drawn on, the celestial avatar.
It does, and I’m sure it will. We’re bound to meet the druids when we get deeper into the jungle. Their home is under attack after all, and we know from quests in the sylvari zones that the druid spirits aren’t all gone.
So far the lore of the elite specs seem to be that the professions gained new skills to adapt to the jungle. It’d make sense if we see the druid spirits passing on their knowledge to rangers to train new druids.
This should have occurred much sooner then. All sylvari are capable at summoning Druid spirits. Such knowledge would have been easily accessible for any of their Rangers. All sylvari can easily perform some “nature magics” at the level of a ranger.
This should have occurred much sooner then. All sylvari are capable at summoning Druid spirits. Such knowledge would have been easily accessible for any of their Rangers. All sylvari can easily perform some “nature magics” at the level of a ranger.
That is true, though the source of Sylvari magic is a bit questionable now that we know they are Modremoth’s creations. More than likely they are tapping into some similar power over nature he has and just using it in a non-evil way.
As for the druid spirits they summon, true. But calling one to fight isn’t quite the same as summoning one to teach you their skills. There are druids in Brisban but they seem very uninterested in interacting with us in any meaningful way.
Things will likely change now that Maguuma is in peril, though.
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